Other People’s Dirt: A Housecleaner’s Curious Adventures

After earning an M.A. in Comparative Literature, Louise Ratkin, facing a career choice, took the road less traveled. She became a housecleaner. The money was better than teaching, the lifestyle intriguing for someone with an insatiable curiosity about her fellow human beings. And while she quickly became an expert on the best vacuum cleaner in the world — and the most efficient paper towels — she also saw the unseen parts of people’s lives.

In this fresh, funny strikingly original memoir, she talks about her invisible status as a domestic worker in a world of illicit sex and secret lives, of closet alcoholics and binge eaters, unlikely spiritualists and revealing celebrities.